During the 1950s, oil magnate, adventurer, and cryptozoologist Tom Slick traveled through the Himalayas searching for evidence that a Yeti. Slick was obsessed with searching for cryptids, even going so far as to steal pieces of the Pangboche Hand, which legend held was a Yeti hand, from a Buddhist monastery in Nepal and convincing actor Jimmy Stewart to smuggle it to England in his wife's lingerie case. Apparently, American Yeti hunting didn't go unnoticed by the US government, as the US embassy in Nepal issued a series of regulations for seeking out Yeti to the State Department.

Mark Murphy of the National Archives discovered this memo, which was written in 1959, the same year that the US embassy opened in Kathmandu (though they were first issued in 1957):

1. Royalty of Rs. 5000/- Indian Currency will have to be paid to His Majesty's Government of Nepal for a permit to carry out an expedition in search of 'Yeti'.

2. In case 'Yeti' is traced it can be photographed or caught alive but it must not be killed or shot at except in an emergency arising out of self defence. All photographs taken of the animal, the creature itself if captured alive or dead, must be surrended to the Government of Nepal at the earliest time.

3. News and reports throwing light on the actual existence of the creature must be submitted to the Government of Nepal as soon as they are available and must not in any way be given out to the Press or Reporters for publicity without the permission of the Government of Nepal.

Now perhaps someone at the embassy really did believe that the hairy truth was out there. But chances are they were trying to keep relations with Nepal as smooth as possible while folks like Slick were tromping over their mountains and pilfering their temple artifacts.